According to foreign media reports, in body armor, there are usually trade-offs-it can have high impact resistance or flexibility, but not both. However, this situation may change due to the emergence of experimental new materials inspired by mollusks.
Usually, the shell of a mollusk is either a rigid piece or two hinged pieces. The turtle's oval shell is different. It consists of eight overlapping shell plates and is surrounded by an annular "belt" at the bottom. The annulus is in turn composed of small, hard, overlapping scales, which are attached to the softer underlying tissue.
This arrangement works well for Shitou. When external forces are applied to them, they will converge inward and lock together, forming a hard barrier. However, when the creature attempts to conform its body to the outline of the rock it clings to, the shell plates and scales slide back and forth with each Other, thereby keeping the shell flexible.
Recently, an international team of scientists began to replicate the function, and finally produced materials with flexibility and impact resistance. It consists of overlapping 3D printed rigid "rules" that are mounted on a flexible substrate. In laboratory tests, it was found that these scales form a strong barrier when subjected to external mechanical forces, and move with the substrate when the substrate is bent. It is worth noting that the smaller the scale, the greater the flexibility and the lower the impact resistance.
Li Ling, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, said: "We want to integrate flexibility and protection, and it is difficult to do this using synthetic systems. We will continue our research to explore design spaces beyond the original biological model system And test under different load conditions. "
Scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, California State University Fulton and the Max Planck Institute for Colloid and Interface Research in Germany also participated in the study. A paper about the study was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
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